In Other Words--A World in My Heart

Before I get to my IOW post, I want to note that my Spectacular Sins Book Club post will be up later today. This week we are looking at "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People?" It is heady stuff, but important to our faith walk to have a sense of why God allows things to happen, if He indeed does. For an amazingly articulate discussion, please visit Lisa at The Preacher's Wife. She has begun the discussion well!

Now, to In Other Words.

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”

by Frederick Buechner, in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

I am unsure if I can write on this quote. It is not that I disagree. Quite the opposite. I totally agree. I live this quote. It resonates in the deepest part of me. And I wish I had been able to quote this years ago to people who said, "How can you....?"

When I left home at eighteen for university, I quickly discovered that my "world lived in" me. It came out in how I made decisions, how I spoke, what I dreamed of being, who I chose as friends. Although there was distance between me and family and growing up friends, it was deemed acceptable. After all, I had "only" gone off to college and surely I would return.

But I didn't return. When I left the great state of Texas to go to graduate school, the tremors of the quake were seismic. How could I leave family? How could I leave Texas? (I was the first grandchild to dare that feat!) My dear grandmother understood this concept, however, and gave me the blessing I needed. "We'll always be a part of you." She said it with a glint in her eye, almost as if it were fate. But it was true.

Family and friends are deeply rooted in me. I feel both of my grandmother's when I am baking one of their favorite dishes, not in a physical presence but in a sense of the continuation of what they started. I've experienced that feeling deep in my gut that says "something has happened" moments before learning of my brother's car accident and at the moment my grandfather died. A deep ache has hit my heart urging me to ring friends at a time when they needed encouragement. I've been blessed by dear friends calling me when I needed it most as well. I believe that the Holy Spirit sends those prompts and helps to tie us together, because we are family of God. He moves in their world as well, so He can prompt me to act on their needs and prompt them to act on mine.

There are times that it is quite difficult to have an ocean between me and much of my family and friends. When someone is hurting, it is difficult that I can't physically go. When someone is rejoicing, I miss the party. But I'm never too far away. That world lives in me. My life is entwined with theirs. The Spirit ensures it. What an incredible blessing it has been to not only go to whereever God has led at the time, but to also carry the lives of so many with me!

Father, today I ask you to hold my family and my friends who are physically far from me but never far from my heart. Give them your blessing today. May they see You in all they encounter. Amen.

This week our hostess is Nina at Mama's Little Treasures. Come and be blessed.